Russian diplomats troll Boris Johnson for comparing Putin’s World Cup to Hitler’s Olympics with tweet showing England’s footballers giving Nazi salute in 1938
The Russian embassy in the US mocked the Foreign Secretary for his comments with a video of the controversial moment in British sporting history
RUSSIAN diplomats have trolled Boris Johnson for comparing Vladimir Putin’s World Cup to Adolf Hitler’s Olympics with a tweet showing England’s footballers giving a Nazi salute in 1938.
The Russian embassy in the US mocked the Foreign Secretary for his comments by posting a video of the controversial moment in UK sporting history.
It comes as Kremlin representatives continue to provoke Britain over the Sergei Skripal poisoning – a day after the policeman caught up in the Salisbury attack was released from hospital.
The embassy account tweeted last night: “Boris Johnson should better not claim World Cup in Russia is like Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics."
Attached is a video of the England team giving the notorious salute, and they then used the hash tag “Munich Betrayal”.
The tweet also has a link to a UN resolution from December 2017 about “combating the glorification of Nazism”, and goes on to say the salute was: “Impossible in Russia then, punishable now!”
The video shows the scene before the match in May 1938, a year before World War Two began, when the England team played Germany in front of 110,000 fans at the Olympic stadium in Berlin.
Hitler himself was not present, but a host of leading Nazis were – including Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels.
The Foreign Office at the time had ordered the English players to give the salute, who reportedly initially refused until the British Ambassador to Germany intervened.
They eventually relented despite not being supportive of the Third Reich, which caused anger and uproar in the press and back home in Britain, and speaking later Sir Stanley Matthews said: "All the England players were livid and totally opposed to this, myself included.”
It is not the first time Russian diplomats have tried to taunt the UK over the poisoning of ex-KGB spy Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia, after the account linked to their embassy in London has repeatedly sent provocative social media messages.
Last week it mocked the investigation into the Salisbury attack, with a picture of the fictional Agatha Christie detective and saying: “In absence of evidence, we definitely need Poirot in Salisbury!”
Asked about it yesterday Russia’s ambassador to London, Alexander Yakovenko, openly laughed at reporters.
The official, branded a “Russian Comical Ali” after he suggested Britain was behind the Salisbury attack, also accused Boris Johnson of insulting his countryman for comparing Putin to Hitler.
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It has led to the British Foreign Office launching a new dedicated campaign to taking on the Russian embassy on social media.
A video put out on their Facebook and Twitter pages listed a string of aggressive behaviour's Russia has been behind in the last decade to try and counter the messages from the other side.
The matter is currently being discussed in Brussels at the EU council, with Theresa May saying her fellow leader are "standing together" to agree "the threat that Russia poses respects no borders and it is a threat to our values".